â€œWe havenâ€™t seen what I would categorize as significant abuse issues. Iâ€™m not going to speak specifically to the hotel thing. That one is a unique case. We have been looking into itâ€¦. Weâ€™ll take the appropriate action, but my gut is telling me that itâ€™s not nearly as suspect as what was written up.

The response struck me at the time as a non denial that was meant to leave the impression that it wasn’t spam while leaving open the possibility that it was just that. We may never really know whether it was in fact mapspam or was something more innocuous. From my point of view it seemed that mapspam had moved from self serving gaming to potential criminal activity in its approach.

Regardless the affiliate links are now gone on all records that I checked.

One then has to wonder:

â€¢If it wasn’t spam why has it been removed?

â€¢If it was spam does a 5% (or more) penetration in one industry not qualify as significant abuse?

â€¢If it was spam who initiated it and managed the spam?

â€¢Was it done manually or automated in someway?

â€¢If it was spam, did it break the law?

â€¢ If it wasn’t spam what are the more benign explanations that Brian was speaking of?

Can anyone think of a use for this multi layer affilate linkng strategy that would be considered benign?

Please consider leaving a comment as your input will help me (& everyone else) better understand and learn about local.

Yahoo Affiliate Mapspam now gone
by Mike Blumenthal

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4 thoughts on “Yahoo Affiliate Mapspam now gone”

I can only imagine this being benign if it went through several different advertisers and/or companies. First, if the advertising company sold it, it would have to bounce through their URL to count for a click, and then it would have to bounce through the affiliate’s URL to count for a click for them too. However, if the affiliate bit off more than he or she could chew, I could imagine them farming it out to other affiliates, sort of a middle, middleman, and the link would then have to bounce through their URLs as well.

This does seem to be a bit of a stretch to me though, and I can’t easily imagine it going through more than two different URLs prior to landing on the final destination.